


Breaking Apart And Coming Together

by Squash (JeSuisGourde)



Series: Jagged Little Pieces [3]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:16:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeSuisGourde/pseuds/Squash
Summary: Why does it always have to be so damn tragic with them? It's not fair, it's never fair, and they can't seem to find a lull in the chaos long enough that happiness could be considered anything but aluxury. At least they've stopped lying to each other. At least there's that.
Relationships: Owen Harper/Ianto Jones
Series: Jagged Little Pieces [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/36009
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Breaking Apart And Coming Together

**Author's Note:**

> This begins about two months after All Twisted Up And Breaking Down.

Ianto stays. Not out of any sort of hope that something will finally come to a head and _someone_ will break down, but because there's nowhere else for him to go. Torchwood has never looked good on a civilian resume, and he's never liked cops or anything resembling them, so he's not going to go UNIT. Most civilian jobs would be too boring now, even with his current employment position. And, if there is one thing that Ianto can guarantee about his personality, it is that he is a glutton for emotional punishment, and he'd rather cling to the traces of something dead and gone than try and let it go.

Since his relegation back to teaboy and archivist, he's perfected the art of imitating a living dumbwaiter, tiptoeing through the hub to deliver coffee and then slipping back down to the lower levels. It feels horribly reminiscent of the past, only this time his life isn't taken up with caring for the half-faded love he clings to so tightly. The dead time is taken up trying to memorize various sections of the archives—something to do that isn't just sitting and twiddling his thumbs—or dancing around various sensitive subjects, i.e. all subjects, with the girls, who still don't know how to tactfully ask what's going on. They're kind and friendly enough, but he just doesn't have anything to say to them. He speaks when spoken to, not before, because the tension in the hub is still high, and some little something could make them all snap, and there's no predicting the cause. Sometimes, he's more afraid of somehow being the catalyst to his own stupid breakdown than the idea of causing Jack or Owen to fly apart.

Jack retains the status quo that has become almost normal: he ignores Ianto, as if he's a particularly annoying movable piece of furniture, as if they've regressed even further back than the butler he'd been when he first started at Torchwood. Owen and Ianto watch each other. Pretend it's discreet on both sides. Pretend they don't notice when they do. Pretend they don't care when they do. Pretend it doesn't matter when it really, really does.

It makes him ache so badly he's gone numb. Ianto feels like every inch of his skin has been laminated, like nothing can touch or interact with him no matter how much he wants it.

He's been spending a lot of his time in the tourist office, digitizing old records while he pretends like this false front has a point. It's almost nice to get some fresh air when some American opens the door, to smell a sea breeze with the scent of chips and beer carried along with it. To hear snatches of the sounds of people chattering and laughing in the restaurants above him, the distant idea of having a life. He straightens the pamphlets and menus in their little holders, sorts the small amount of post into junk to be binned and a tray for potentially interesting or important mail, changes out last month's events calendars for this and next months'. It's hardly a life.

Owen has been watching him with a sort of unconscious misery, and Jack was clipped, and the girls have been asking too many awkward questions, so he's escaped up to the tourist office to sit in relative peace and transcribe files and sometimes pretend he's a normal person with a boring normal job at a tourist centre. It's actually nice outside today, and he looks forward to the door swinging open. When the post arrives, he relishes the breeze, thanks the delivery man, and sits down to sort through variously sized letters. It's mostly junk and some refills for the racks in the tourist centre, so his body reacts before his brain does, and he's left wondering why it feels like a jolt of electricity slammed into his head and raced its way up and down his spine, and finally his shaking hand reaches for the letter addressed with his own name.

The return address is familiar. His breath feels trapped in his throat.

Somewhere around fifteen minutes later, Owen arrives, sent to find the errant coffee boy, a complaint about being sent on search and rescue missions when he's got better things to do perched on the tip of his tongue. The complaint turns to dust in his mouth at the sight of Ianto sitting at the counter of the tourist office, a slightly crumpled letter held loosely in his hand, eyes gazing distantly at nothing as tears roll down his cheeks, sliding to meet and cling there under his chin before falling.

A sort of distant, muffled mist covers the entire world. Everything seems very far away to Ianto, like his senses are on overdrive but then he's been stuffed full of gauze. Someone is standing next to him, someone's warm hand is circling his wrist gently, is taking his pulse, is stroking a thumb against the back of his hand.

“Ianto?” Owen's voice is frantic, but the muffled buzzing in his ears snatches it away. “Ianto, are you all right? Ianto!”

That one gets through, the crackling note of fear breaking a tiny hole in the fog. Ianto turns his head towards Owen, and even though his vision is fine, it's like he can hardly see the man in front of him. His head swims with metal and fire and torn plastic sheeting and white, white halls.

“Ianto, hey, okay,” The hand on his wrist moves to clasp his hand. “Squeeze my hand if you can understand me.” Ianto's fingers obey. “Good. One squeeze for no, two for yes, got it?” Ianto squeezes. “Are you sick?” A single squeeze. “Did something attack you?” Another single squeeze.

“Can you talk?” Ianto tries, opens his mouth just barely, tries to force the word 'Yes' out between his lips, but there's a scream from years ago trapped inside his throat and nothing is going to get around it, so he presses Owen's hand once.

“Did something in here cause this?” Ianto closes his eyes for a moment and forces his right hand to raise the letter off the table, even though its contents feel like they weigh six thousand pounds. He opens his eyes and looks towards Owen again, fresh tears blurring the worried look on the medic's face. Owen reaches towards the crumpled paper. “Can I read the letter?” Two weak squeezes.

Owen's thumb sweeps slowly, methodically across the inside of Ianto's wrist as he reads the letter, and Ianto attempts to focus on that single pinpoint of sensation, to ground himself in reality. But echoing in his head is the fear, the visceral, abject terror, the pain, the frantic scramble and screaming for safety, for help, the grief, the sound and smell of metal, of seared flesh, of fear-sweat and fire. And now there's nothing left. He's the only one.

“Shit,” Owen breathes, looking up from the paper, and now his hands are shaking, too. “Fuck, Ianto, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize you were one of the last.”

Ianto manages a nod. Then the full meaning of the letter hits him as Owen's words and the typed words on the page both register properly and connect to each other, and the silent, paralytic tears suddenly shudder and quake and grow into gasping sobs that wrack his whole body. Ianto curls into himself, pulling his fists against his chest, and Owen's fingers release his wrist to let him go, curling instead across the back of his neck. He can't catch a deep breath through the sobs, he can't breathe, it's like he's back in the hallway full of flames and horror and the stitch in his side from running and the people he runs blindly into and the unfeeling voices demanding obedience and it's too small in here, too cramped, they could trap him here, so he bursts out of the chair, slamming into Owen's shocked form, and around the counter to the door, outside, he needs to be in the open.

Outside the tourist centre, the world continues like it isn't ending. The sky is a nearly-cloudless blue, and he can hear the sound of people chatting and walking on Tacoma Square above. He tries to gulp the clear scent of the sea, let the salt wash away the smoke and the terror, but it isn't working and he backs himself up against the wall of the dock, shrinking into a corner and trying but failing to catch the keening sound that slips out of his mouth.

And then Owen is beside him, palms outstretched, asking to touch, and Ianto wants something solid and real to hold him down to earth and make him remember that it's over, it's over. He clings to Owen, tucking his head into Owen's shoulder, fists clenched in the back of his shirt. Owen rubs his back, his neck, his hair, murmurs comforting nonsense into his ear in a low voice. He rocks them back and forth, gently.

Finally, when Ianto is able to loosen his grip and step only incrementally back, Owen mutters, “Fuck it,” and looks at him, expression almost as scared and sad as Ianto's, sighs, schools that expression into something calmer, cloaks the distress in gentle concern.

“Do you want me to bring you home?” Owen asks, and Ianto nods blearily, not even trying to retain dignity as he wipes the tears and snot and sweat from his face. He follows Owen back into the tourist office, leaning heavily on the counter and listening dimly to the half conversation over the earpiece. “Guys, Ianto got some bad news and is taking it hard. I'm going to drive him home, yeah? No, if there's a call text me and I'll head back. No, Gwen, he could barely even talk to answer my questions to make sure he was okay. I think he just needs someplace quiet and familiar right now.”

“Thank you,” Ianto whispers through the last hitching breaths as his panic attack finally calms.

In the car, Ianto huddles into the seat, body shifted right to face Owen, shoulders and head curled downward as he breathes through his mouth and battles the shaking sighs that want to transform back into tears. Owen's hand slides over the centre console, palm up, offering an anchor to hold onto. Ianto takes it and clings hard to the solid, stable feeling of their fingers twined together, even if his grip might be bruising. For the moment, all tension between them is forgotten, all conflict dissolved, because Ianto's bones feel like they're made of porcelain and all he wants to do is curl up like a child and cling and cry.

Once Ianto has changed into a pair of sweats and an oversized t-shirt and is sat huddled under his duvet, dry-eyed but staring blankly at some distant point, Owen makes two cups of tea for the both of them. Ianto starts when he puts the two mugs down on the bedside table, but shifts over so that Owen can join him. He just needs to cling to something soft, to feel the touch of blankets and warmth and tea instead of the scrape of metal and smoke and hurt. Owen sips his tea, waiting, and barely reacts when Ianto tips slowly to rest his head on Owen's shoulder.

“They're all gone,” his first words in an hour, and his voice is hoarse from tears, “I can't believe it.”

“I'm so sorry, Ianto.”

But Ianto feels like the shock and grief is pouring out his mouth, and barely notices Owen. The memories chase him and run him down, just trying to get out. His tongue tastes like ash as he talks.

“After the battle was over, officially over, there were eighty-three survivors. Most of us were injured, or half-converted, or had passed out from the smoke. Emergency services started pulling all the injured people from the wreckage and transferring them to hospitals across London. The half-converted ones, if it was obvious the helmet or emotional inhibitor were already in place, were shot wherever they lay. By the time everyone was executed or shipped to hospitals, there were sixty-seven of us left. Half of those eventually died in care from their injuries. I moved Lisa to my flat on the barest of life support, in the dead of night, with things I took from the rubble.”

Owen puts an arm round Ianto, who leans against him and wonders what it must be like to hear someone babble out their trauma from an event no one else remembers. Like it was all a dream. Like it didn't kill hundreds of people. Like it never even happened. Sure, Owen scavenged the wreckage with the rest of Torchwood Three, but the aftermath is nothing like going through it.

“They forced all of us who survived to go through this horrible group therapy for a week before we were deemed apparently well enough to be released into the public. I got hired at Torchwood Three and moved to Radyr, and in my first three weeks, eight people killed themselves. They weren't ready to go back into the world. What do you do when you work for a secret organization, and then when it gets destroyed and you _know_ aliens were the ones that killed your friends and colleagues, everyone thinks you're fucking mad? How do you deal with it? An entire office tower of staff, three hundred people working, and only eighty-three survive. Then only sixty-seven.” He punches the mattress weakly. “Fucking nothing. After I moved, there were fifty-nine. And people kept dying. Complications from their injuries, sickness from the smoke or alien chemicals they might have encountered, their own fucking hand. And Lisa. The agency that examined us originally would send letters every month, detailing the fucking death count, notifying the other survivors. And the numbers have been dwindling, ever since. But I never thought I'd be the last. Always thought I'd be dead first, some way. And now no one else remembers. Not really.”

“Christ, Ianto,” Owen breathes. “I'm so fucking sorry.”

Everything hurts, in that strange distant way where the ache comes from memories and crying too much. Ianto falls into the hug Owen offers, falls back into weeping silently, his body too tired for sobs but too full of grief not to do _something_. He knows there's not much Owen can do or say to make it better, but he's glad there's someone here with him.

He whispers a “thank you,” before he pulls away to curl up in bed. He falls asleep to the sensation of tears snaking down his face, of Owen gently running his fingers over his hair.

It's dark outside when he wakes up with a start, the remnants of a sort of half-nightmare fading away. He sits up, bleary-eyed and blinking, and then the weight hits him and he feels his whole body curl in, like someone has set a stone on his back.

He wraps the duvet around his shoulders and shuffles out to the living room. Owen is sitting on his sofa, reading a book, the sound of his teeth clicking gently against his thumbnail loud in the quiet room.

Owen looks up at the sound of Ianto's feet dragging across the carpet. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Everything hangs in the air between them. Ianto knows he looks sad and pathetic all wrapped up in a blanket. “Coffee?”

“Ianto, it's two in the morning. You slept for eleven hours.”

“Coffee.” Ianto decides, nodding.

Owen watches him as he turns the kettle on, grinds the beans and pours them into the cafetiere. Ianto can feel eyes on his back as he pours the boiling water in and sets the lid on, plunger just barely covered by the coffee.

“Look,” he says into the silence as they both wait for the coffee to brew, “This is something normal. It's easy. I can do it without thinking. I just need something familiar right now. I'm not going mad, I just—I don't know what to do.”

It's just that, when it happened, there was no time for survivor's guilt. Every fibre of his being was concentrated on Lisa, and what little free space in his brain he could find was used in keeping up appearances at Torchwood Three and trying not to think about how his secret could get them both killed. And after Lisa died, it was all about getting back in the team's good graces, and Jack, and being able to be out in the field, and trying to forget Lisa full of metal for the Lisa with unmarred skin and a shining smile.

Owen says nothing, but he watches Ianto plunge the cafetiere and pour two cups, and he does take the mug Ianto holds out to him. Ianto sits down beside him and gulps four mouthfuls of coffee in quick succession before Owen puts a hand over the rim of the cup. He swallows thickly and balances the mug on his knee with a sigh.

“You'd think that with all the shit we do, all the shit we see, that we'd be used to it. That the trauma would, I don't know, cancel out? Fade away? Do something that isn't _this_?”

Owen reaches over to rub the back of Ianto's neck gently. “I know. It never does, though, does it?”

“Torchwood fucking _runs_ on trauma.” Ianto falls silent, focusing on the feeling of Owen's fingers tangled in the hair at the back of his neck, kneading gently at his muscles. It's the first time he's been touched like this in months. He feels tears prickle his eyes and his throat constricts, breath hitching for an entirely different reason. He presses his thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

“I miss you,” he confesses, voice clogged with unshed tears. “I miss us.”

“Ianto—” Owen's hand pauses but doesn't pull away.

Ianto shakes his head. “No, don't tell me it's the shock talking, or the grief, or whatever it is you were going to say. I've fucking missed you for months. What we had felt so _good_ , and then you left because you thought you knew what was good for me. You have to have seen the way Jack treats me, like I'm not there at all. You have to know whatever was there between him and me when he left has been gone since he got back. You know, I can feel you watching me in the hub sometimes. There's nothing good left for me there, except maybe you.”

Owen is staring at him, expression conflicted. Ianto shrugs, gesturing angrily. “You've got some fucking complex thinking I'm better off without you, when clearly you're the only one who gives a shit about me. You touch me and I feel like a fucking _person_ that _matters._ I want that again. I want to touch you again. I _miss_ you.”

“Ianto—” Owen's voice is barely above a whisper.

“Please don't lie to me because you think it's good for me. Not right now, Owen, _please_.”

“Okay,” Owen takes a slow breath. “Okay. I miss you, too. I don't know what to do.”

There's a long silence in which Ianto watches Owen's expression twist and change, and tries not to think about the last time, when Owen gave up and ran. He tries not to breathe. Owen rubs at the corner of his eye, his own breathing ragged.

“I want you so much, but I'm terrified of hurting you. I thought it would be easier to just ignore it and pretend it never happened, but it really, really isn't.”

“What do you want to do?”

There's a beat of silence. The look on Owen's face is all vulnerability and fear, and then he seems to come to a decision, and his expression softens. “Come here.”

His thumb sweeps across the back of Ianto's neck gently as he pulls him in for a kiss.

They don't tell anyone about it. Ianto is sure the girls will pick up on the change in tension, but probably won't say a word. Owen's looks change from miserable longing to something sweeter; Ianto brings him coffee with a small smile. Still, he can't even call this the honeymoon period; they're both relieved and terrified that this is happening, uncertain about everything and trying find solid ground.

Jack must notice the change, Ianto is sure of it, but he's wrapped up in whatever stoic anger or trauma or Serious Leader role he's built himself since coming back. Ianto used to think Jack loved them all in some way, that under the sociopathic flash exterior, he had an excess of love to give. Now he thinks all that's been sucked away and Jack has reduced himself to the sociopath that hundreds of years of life probably turned him into. Maybe he was always like this and Ianto was too in love with him to notice. Whatever it is, it's easier to endure Jack's unreadable stare and harsh silence when he knows Owen is just on the other side of the hub.

But it's not as though this is going to change everything. Ianto knows he won't get reinstated to field agent unless they're desperate enough to need every single person. He knows he will remain as invisible as he's always been, that Gwen will still try to make awkward, stilted conversation and Tosh will look at him like she wants to ask him if he's okay but she doesn't have the strength.

* * *

“Do you want to be back out in the field?” Owen asks him one night, curled on Ianto's couch with beer and whatever's on telly. “It's like you're trapped in the hub all the time, taking care of us.”

“That's how it used to be, when I first came to Torchwood Three.” Ianto shrugs. “I've gotten used to it, I guess. Mostly it's pretty boring but I guess it's good not to be facing the threat of imminent death all the time.”

“Ianto,” Owen looks unimpressed. “You're an adrenaline junkie just like the rest of us. Maybe you weren't when you worked at Torchwood One. Maybe you weren't even one when you first started here, but you go into the field and you feel that rush, there's no way you don't come out craving it.”

“Maybe, but it's up to Jack what I do. And anyway, I've got this to concentrate on,” He gestures between them, his hand coming to rest curled around Owen's ankle. “I'd rather do one thing at a time.”

And he's at the hub, running communications as best he can through CCTV hacks and blueprints when the massive alien they were trying to rescue breaks free, and Rhys is shot but not badly, and Owen has to euthanise the massive creature. Ianto has been tense since the hostage situation, the horrible nail-biting feeling of only being able to hear what's going on, not to help. But through Owen's open comm link, he can hear the keening death sounds of the huge alien, and over it, Owen's grief-stricken whispers of “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.” Sometimes Owen is so terrifyingly, fragilely human that it makes Ianto marvel that he's survived this job so long. Once there is nothing but silence in the background, he hears Owen bite back a sob, then the slam of a door, and retching, and he can see through the CCTV on the dock that Owen has vomited onto the tarmac and is sinking down against the wall, his hands pressed to his face. Ianto switches his comm link to private, and murmurs gentle reassurances in Owen's ear: that he did what he had to, that he's a good doctor, that if the creature was sentient, it probably understood in the end.

Owen is shaking when he gets back to the hub. Jack, Gwen, and Tosh carry a semi-conscious Rhys onto the table in the medbay, and Ianto watches Owen pause at the top of the stairs to inhale deeply, squaring his shoulders and steadying his grip on the rail. It frightens Ianto sometimes how quickly they can all snap the lid shut on their more volatile or vulnerable emotions, the way they all grow armour to cover all the cracks and scars. But Owen's hands are steady and Rhys' surgery goes without a hitch.

It's only after, when Rhys has been tended to and is walking out onto the Plass with Gwen that Owen searches out Ianto in the conference room, tidying up the day's paperwork. Ianto had seen Owen's face in profile when Jack had mentioned the alien's fate: the look of regret and failure in the set of his jaw, the dull stare of his dark eyes. He turns around when he hears the tired drag of Owen's footsteps. There's a beat of silence between them during which Ianto gets the chance to survey the exhaustion and hurt in the set of Owen's mouth and the glaze in his eyes before Owen falls into Ianto's embrace, desperate for comfort. One hand comes up to comb through Owen's hair gently. Ianto kisses his temple.

“You did what had to be done,” he murmurs. “You freed it from pain. You're a good doctor, Owen.”

Owen only clings to him, muffling a choked sob into Ianto's shirt. He smells like fear and iodine and vomit and ozone but Ianto just wants to keep hold of him. He rubs Owen's back, feeling the spasms of the hyperventilation that warms his collarbone.

Owen sags in his arms. “I want to go home,” is muffled into his shirt, all the exhaustion and hurt that implies clear in Owen's voice.

Ianto keeps an arm around Owen all the way to the car, because the lid to whatever box he'd trapped everything inside to fix Rhys has come open, and the helpless grief is making its presence known. It's not as though Owen is incapable of walking on his own, but he knows the man is absurdly tactile despite his attempts to hide it. He eases Owen into the car and kisses his forehead gently as he buckles him in. The drive home is punctuated by hitching breaths and Ianto's gentle, nonsensical shushing noises in response.

“I need a fucking drink,” Owen states, making a beeline to the kitchen while Ianto locks his front door. He turns to find Owen leaning in the doorway of his kitchen, drinking straight from a bottle of whiskey.

“Today was shit,” he mutters, kicking aimlessly at the baseboard until Ianto curls his fingers around one wrist and pulls gently. Owen follows him obediently to the couch, flopping bonelessly onto the cushions and letting Ianto remove his shoes. He takes another two swigs of whiskey before Ianto sits beside him and then pulls his head down to rest in his lap.

“One sodding creature. I could have saved it.” Owen raises his head and pulls from the bottle. Ianto waits until he puts his head back down to take it from him, but Owen doesn't resist.

“It was different from the others. It was innocent.” Ianto says nothing, but his fingers slide into Owen's hair and massage his scalp gently. Owen's breathing hitches.

“It's in the fucking oath and everything, to do everything we can to help, and I didn't.” Ianto leans down and kisses Owen's forehead without stopping his hand movements. He kisses Owen's closed eyes. They still taste like salt.

“You did the right thing, Owen,” Ianto insists. “What would you have wanted if you were that creature?”

A beat of silence, and Owen's hand comes up to squeeze Ianto's, never opening his eyes. “I don't know. I don't. I guess it was right. I don't know.”

Most of the time they all act like every thing at Torchwood is completely black and white, like there's a definitive answer for every question, like there's a right and wrong for every action. But really, it's all just so fucking grey.

* * *

Owen and Ianto don't do dates. A date would require a type of fanciful pretense they've never had. A date requires an added layer of public affection, different from their sort of casual interactions. A date would bring along all the spectres of the past, adding more ghosts to this relationship than either of them really want.

It really isn't a date, but when Jack gives the team the evening off, the two of them get chips and wander the Hayes, perusing a record shop and Waterstones.

It isn't a date, even though Ianto manages to sneak a kiss in Waterstones and Owen forgets to glare. They wander in and out of shops and department stores, workaholics unused to idleness, killing time and maybe trying out normality again for just a moment.

Owen jabs him in the ribs and leans in close to tease him about the suit-wearing mannequins in a shop window. Ianto swats at him playfully and Owen leaps back, laughing. Ianto chases him, their laughter echoing off the glass ceiling of the arcade until Ianto catches up, grabbing at him, and digs his knuckles into the side of Owen's head, presses his thumbs into Owen's ribs until the man hisses and jumps.

“I'm not even wearing a suit, you prick,” Ianto grumbles, gesturing to his jeans and t-shirt-clad body, still breathless and smiling.

“Even when you're not wearing a suit, you're still wearing a suit,” Owen grins, and dodges another swipe. “You're lucky you look fucking good in them.”

“I could spit in your coffee,” Ianto warns playfully.

“You wouldn't. It would ruin your precious art.”

“I know where you live.”

“Oh, I'm so scared. What're you going to do? Jump me in the night?”

“Could do,” Ianto shrugs. “If you're into that.”

Owen pretends to consider it. “Okay, we can give it a go.”

Making their way back to Owen's flat, they walk side by side, bumping shoulders, their hands brushing against each other occasionally, fingers sometimes tangling together before letting go again, but they're not going to mention it. Like dates, hand-holding has a few too many ghosts in the grip.

Ianto does jump Owen when they get back to the flat, pinning him first against the front door and then against the wall once they've stumbled up the stairs to the loft area where Owen's bed is. Owen is whispering roughly in Ianto's ear, playfully threatening him, egging him on, lightly goading him into following through. His pupils are huge black pools and his fingers clench and flex against Ianto's skin, and Ianto hooks a leg around Owen's ankle and dumps them both onto the bed. Owen's surprised laugh turns into a growl and then into a moan as Ianto scrapes his teeth along Owen's collarbone and grins.

* * *

All of them are missing two days, and Ianto hopes they haven't done anything really terrible, but this is Torchwood so they probably have. He woke up slumped horribly in his chair at the briefing room table, Owen blinking sleepily up at him, hair smoothed unnaturally to one side, a red mark on his forehead from where it had been pillowed on his arms.

But everything important is still intact. So he makes coffee and hands it out while Tosh and Gwen brainstorm how to make sure there's nothing around to trigger any memories, without triggering their memories. But Lisa is in the forefront of Ianto's thoughts, whole and human and beautiful and smelling like peaches and he smiles stupidly at the stone wall in front of him. Falling in love with her was incomparable. Nothing like Owen or Jack, his love for her was unblemished and innocent, not tinged with guilt or trauma or confusion. He had planned to ask her to marry him, had been thinking quietly about rings when Torchwood One collapsed in a twisting heap along with the rest of his life.

Everyone is wandering about the hub slightly off-kilter. Jack is brooding in his office, looking angry and lost, and while Ianto knows that he'll get nothing from it, he moves to make the captain a cup of his best extra-strength coffee. They're all confused right now. It's just that while the rest of them simply look tired and a bit sad, Jack looks like he's _grieving_ and Ianto can't help but feel sympathetic.

He's clearly distracted, not on his game, because he pulls the lever too hard and the coffee machine _screams_ , a grinding, steaming sound that he should easily recognize as _coffee machine_ but his tired mind categorizes it as _human – no, human-machine_ , and he starts hyperventilating helplessly as his brain flicks carelessly through his memories and throws up reeling images of blood and fire and destruction, the screams of the dying and half-converted, the plastic sheeting like ghostly walls, the quiet, muffled weeping of the woman behind him in line with her hands stuffed over her mouth. Lisa nowhere to be found, not in his line, she worked in a different department, a different floor. The sweat that dripped into his eye and made it sting, how he'd distantly wondered if he'd ever feel such a simple pain again. The blood that ran like rivers across the floor. How he'd been unable to smell anything but metal and fire for months afterward. And now he's the last. They're all gone. He stumbles to the leather chair on the other side of the makeshift kitchen. There's nothing left, not even a plaque to remember it all. Not even a public list of the dead. He could have dreamed it all up.

“Ianto?” Gwen's voice swims into his consciousness. “Ianto!”

A hand on his knee, and Gwen is crouched in front of him. He stares at her, then out at the hub, orientating himself, honing in on the water trickling down the tower as he slows his breathing. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and Gwen stands for half a second to reach over the counter and hand him a napkin.

“Gwen, what's—” Tosh takes in the scene: Gwen on one knee, Ianto shuddering quietly on the chair, wiping at his face. “Ianto, are you okay?”

Ianto nods, then shakes his head. His fingers turn to claws and scrape bluntly at his own thighs. “You remember Canary Wharf,” It's not a question. It can't be. “There were eighty-three survivors when it was all over. I'm—” His throat catches on the thought, still so hard to say or understand. “I'm the only one still living. There's no one else left.”

“Shit,” Gwen whispers. “Oh my god.”

Ianto nods, mustering up some dry wit. “That's about my assessment of the situation.”

“I'm so sorry, Ianto.”

“It's okay, Tosh. It just hits hard sometimes.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Whatever happened the past two days must have shaken loose some memories.”

“It feels like someone's been rifling through my brain,” Tosh agrees, moving to help as Ianto eases himself to standing. “Like there's all these old memories floating about for no reason.”

“Ianto?” Owen joins them, hair appropriately mussed again, but the look on his face still grim and sad.

“Hey,” Ianto moves into Owen's space, leaning his forehead on his shoulder. Owen hooks an arm around his waist, determined to ignore the girls' staring.

“You alright?”

Ianto shrugs. “Memories of Canary Wharf. It's just kind of— hit me again that I'm the only one left. I could have dreamed it all up, you know. It could just be the nightmare of one fucked up Torchwood employee. I know it's not, but the prospect...”

“It's hard,” Tosh nods, expression solemn, like she knows. “When you're the only one who was there. It feels like it wasn't real.”

“Yeah.” He lets go of Owen to hug Gwen, then Tosh. “Thank you for coming to check on me, both of you.”

“Of course, love,” Gwen smiles at him, rocking forward slightly on her toes. “You're part of the team, we want you to be okay.”

Ianto turns to Owen as the girls resume their original task. “Listen, I'm going to give Jack his coffee. I'm all right, I promise. Just a little flashback. Not like before.”

Ianto knocks lightly on the office door, just to announce his presence. Jack hardly glances up. He's methodically tearing a blank incident report to the smallest shreds, gaze distant.

“Coffee, Jack. As strong as I could.” He sets the mug down at the edge of the desk.

“You're really the only one left?” The question is abrupt and very quiet. Ianto's stomach swoops a little, caught somewhere between embarrassment and shock.

“You heard that down there?”

“Mm. UNIT didn't tell me that.”

“UNIT wasn't the one sending the letters. It was some third party agency assigned to the survivors by UNIT. They were meant to give us therapy right after it all happened. They ended up just being eulogists.”

Jack inclines his head, only looking at Ianto from the corner of his eye. Ianto can tell he's not entirely present. “I'm sorry about that.”

He looks a little like he wants to say more, but nobody here is in a fit state to talk about things like this, not when they're all trapped in little individual bubbles of personal past, memories permeating every thought and interaction. Ianto interrupts before Jack can start, as much a distraction as a message.

“I've got to go, Owen's waiting.”

Jack doesn't even flinch. “Tell everyone they're free to go home. Today and tomorrow off. We don't know what we've been doing. Things are messy. We deserve a weekend.”

“Will do, Jack. Good night.”

Jack doesn't respond. He's staring at his thumbnails in the dim light, tan and heavy against the smooth blotter. Ianto goes back downstairs to tell the girls, who wish him good night. He wanders down into the med bay to find Owen kicking angrily at his computer, threatening it in a way that would be menacing if it didn't have a peaky tinge of exhaustion to it. He wonders how long the aftereffects of the past will keep a hold on them.

He slides a hand over Owen's shoulder and across his chest, pulling the other man in close to him. Owen blows frustrated little puffs of air out his nose, but relaxes back into Ianto's touch.

“Let's go home.”

“Yeah,” Owen heaves a sigh. “Yeah. I'm fucking sick of this.”

They spend the night in Owen's bed, in the familiar old position, side by side with their shoulders overlapping, until Owen's breathing evens out into sleep and he rolls onto his side, curling into Ianto and nuzzling into his touch. Ianto stays awake, taps a gentle beat out on Owen's skin to keep away the burning metal nightmares that threaten his slumber; he watches the sky lighten and Owen's slow, measured breathing, wondering without any real intent if there's any point in a Torchwood employee's career when this trauma shit finally fucking _stops_. He knows the answer to the rhetorical question well enough before he even thinks it. But it's nice to maybe imagine, once in a while, an ending that doesn't contain the unforgiving finales of retcon or death.

At least, he thinks, as the sky lightens further and Owen snuffles against his armpit, he managed to get a decently civilized interaction with the girls _and_ Jack out of all this. Something to try for again in the future, minus all the digging around in memories and playing with retcon.

* * *

Martha Jones is very sweet, and very pretty, and once Owen gets over his territorial instincts, he flirts shamelessly with her, that playful little grin softening his features into something a little nicer than the scowl he often wears at work. Ianto isn't at all bothered; Torchwood as a whole has adopted flirting and a variety of affairs as the company-wide pastime, UNIT-affiliated guests no exception.

This case has got the entire Torchwood team running in fifteen different directions. Jack sends Ianto out on police duty with Gwen, and Ianto can't quite figure out if this means he's been reinstated as a field agent, or if he's just playing the part of sidekick. Owen's got his hands full, but Ianto comes back from recon at the dead student's flat to find Owen and Martha playing CSI: Torchwood, the lab space full of little petri dishes full of dead bugs, beakers and microscopes and bits of medical tech he didn't even realize they had. He brings two mugs of coffee down to them, a cappucino with chocolate sprinkles to Martha, and the usual black coffee with a shot of espresso for Owen's caffeine addiction. Owen thanks him with that soft, lopsided smile, expression gone all gentle and sweet and it makes Ianto's stomach flip a little every time, the way his usual sneer slides away every time Owen looks at him.

Owen comes back from the Pharm grumbling, but once Martha has been kitted out and is on the way to espionage, he's back on his game, concentrating on every word from Copley's mouth, eyes narrowed in thought. Even once she's in, exploring the room and readying for the wait until she can explore, Owen is in analysis mode, muttering to himself about how to get access to records and samples.

“I'm glad you and Martha are getting along,” Ianto comments as Owen paces the length of the kitchen over and over to stretch his legs. “For a moment I thought we were going to have a feud.”

“Nah, she's a sweet girl. She's smart, she's hot. She fits in just fine. I like her.”

“I can tell.” But Ianto just grins when Owen turns to him. “It's fine. Just a bit of fun. She's more level-headed than any of us, I don't think she'll be wanting a Torchwood sweetheart any time soon.”

“Ianto, Jack's got a task for us,” Gwen's voice interrupts them over the comms. “There's another potential victim.”

With Billy Davies semi-conscious in a chair in the cells, Jack's grinning, a threatening and devious look that reveals just how sociopathic he can be behind the wide white smile.

“Ianto, get the weevil spray. Quickest way to get information out of a subject, and we don't have much time.”

Jack's got his slightly creepy methods, and Owen's got his own. It's just not fair that he always gets the disgusting results. While Ianto gets to have fun lugging weevils about, Owen gets yet another explosive outcome. This one's a bit messier than a ball of paper in a cup. Owen blinks blood out of his eye and looks like he can't decide between disgust or vexation. It's so much like _Alien_ , it might be funny, if there weren't intestines on nearly every surface within a three foot radius of Davies' body.

In the bathroom afterward, Owen cleans blood off his face while Ianto finds him a new shirt in the lockers. There are guts all over the cells that he's going to have to clean up later, but right now getting into the Pharm is priority over the cleanliness of the lower levels. Owen takes the shirt he holds out, then holds his gaze in the mirror, still shirtless, that sharp, flirtatious grin on his face again.

“You look hot when you're manhandling weevils,” he smirks. “All tough and masculine.”

“I'd say you look good with blood in your hair, but maybe not if it's someone else's.”

“What, you'd rather it be mine?” Owen pulls the clean shirt on and begins to button it.

Ianto shrugs, playing along. This was always the most fun part of their relationship, even in the beginning. The antagonistic banter that holds more teasing affection than any actual venom, and more than a little flirting. “At least if it were yours, I'd know how it got there.”

“Fine, next time I get someone's blood in my hair, I won't come to you for help in the shower.”

Ianto gives in to the childish urge and sticks his tongue out at Owen, who barks out a laugh and pulls him in for a kiss.

He's heading towards the storage closet to prepare a body bag for Davies' exploded corpse when Tosh intercepts him, an excited look on her face. Tosh is twisted, and brilliant, and her plan is ridiculous but it just might work to get them into the Pharm. And if they're caught, well, they have guns and UNIT on their side at least. Ianto gives her espresso with chocolate as a treat while she builds a program to control the assassin's SUV. Jack and Owen are both pacing the hub, nervous and high-strung.

“Owen, Tosh, Gwen, let's go. We need to get to Martha and shut this place down. Ianto, stay here, man the comms.”

“Jack, we need as many hands as we can get,” Gwen protests. “We're going into this half-blind, we don't know the extent of their security or any other dangers. They had one assassin, they could have more. Give Ianto a gun, he was fine in the field while you were gone.”

Jack nods, distracted, too focused on Martha's safety to give Ianto any real thought. “Fine. Ianto, get your gun and anything else. Everyone else, get what you need. Tosh, set up Davies' van. We're leaving in ten.”

At least it's not a no.

* * *

“This is fucking stupid,” Ianto mutters as they all sit crushed into the back of the car. His legs are practically in Gwen's face. “Really stupid. My feet are asleep.”

“Your feet are under my arse,” Gwen counters, shifting uncomfortably.

“I don't feel like a secret agent at all,” Owen offers up, half-serious. “I feel like a sardine.”

“Hush,” Tosh interrupts their snarking. “We're getting close. Get ready.”

It's stupidly easy to break into the Pharm's campus, and Ianto wonders if maybe all their security detail is focused on Martha, or if most of the security is technological, and the thugs are just for show. Or maybe they all really are just thick.

Even in Torchwood One, with all its cruelties and intolerances and misguided appropriations of alien technology, Ianto has never seen so many different aliens imprisoned in one place. All of them trapped, all of them drugged, and probably barely alive. He wanders off into the maze of incubators to relay the details to Jack while Tosh and Gwen interrogate Dr. Plummer.

They all understand the implications of total shutdown. Any life support or tranquilizer drug being used to keep the aliens alive yet subdued will either shut down or flood the system, killing all of the incarcerated creatures. Still, death is probably better for them than the torture of experimentation. Alien or not, the creatures being held here are sentient. Alien or not, they can still feel _pain_. Gwen shoves her gun in the small of Dr. Plummer's back, pushing her forward. Ianto covers behind them as Tosh types one-handed on her laptop, hacking into the Pharm's systems and readying a shutdown. Ahead, Ianto can see Owen supporting a hobbling Martha, smiling gently.

At the car, Jack nods to Tosh. “Do it.”

Alarms sound as the power cuts out, the entire compound going dark section by section. Guards and other personnel wander confusedly toward the exit, gathering in clumps at the fence. It's over. They turn to pack up their equipment, job done, leave the rest for the functioning legal teams of UNIT and the police.

It's not over.

Owen is playing at hero of the hour, arms raised in part surrender, part reassurance as he moves to talk Copely down. A man Owen idolised in medical school, who he held as one of the highest authorities in medical research. The brilliant mind crushed small by ambition, now nothing but a hateful man with a gun and nothing to lose. Owen is talking in low tones, trying to be charming, trying to be convincing, but it's like time slows down and everything is frozen and Ianto stares at the back of Owen's head, the way his body is twisted like it's already poised to fall.

They're all braced for the shot, but they're not _expecting_ it, not ready for it to actually _happen_ , and Ianto feels his whole body flinch like he's the one who's been hit. Owen collapses, as if his body has just decided to stop holding him upright. There's a second shot, as Jack kills Copely, but no one else seems to have noticed it. Ianto's in the back again, watching it all over everyone else's heads, his whole body screaming _nonononono not again no_! And he can't move, can't breathe, can't anything, because all that's filling his field of vision is Owen on the black tarmac, bleeding. He wants Owen to be okay, wants to know if he's going to be okay, wants to run to him and hold him, but there's the ghost of past Owen, bleeding from a slash in his stomach, snarling, a shove, the furious, hostile growl telling him to get away. The world's gone sideways, and he can't get away from the memory of Owen's anger, the hurt like digging your fingers into a wound that's only just started to heal. Ianto thinks distantly that he must look ridiculous, just standing there in shock while everyone else scrambles frantically around him. Owen is bleeding fast, twitching on the ground, eyes wide, gasping for breath as Jack desperately tries to hold onto him, and Ianto can't look away, can't move, a strange sort of white noise rings in his ears, and maybe it's just because Jack's gun went off right beside him. Owen's legs are crumpled underneath him, and Ianto irrationally wants to settle him into a more comfortable position.

“He's dead,” filters into his brain, parses itself, makes itself known, and Ianto understands the words by definition but can't understand the sentence, and then everything goes numb.

Ianto is vaguely aware of Gwen taking the gun and torch from his limp hands and trying to coax him into Davies' jeep, vaguely aware of shaking her off to help Jack and Martha lift Owen's body ( _“You're bloody heavy, Harper, I'm going to stop buying chocolate hobnobs for you, I think.” “Oi, I'm not fat! And anyway, you love being pinned down, I know it.”_ ) into the back of the car. Someone (Jack) has closed Owen's eyes, and Ianto, without thinking, reaches out to wipe the blood from Owen's mouth.

“Ianto.” Gwen is at his side again. She touches his shoulder lightly, uncertainly, and she sounds like she's holding back tears. “Ianto, we have to go.”

He follows her obediently, saying nothing because there's nothing _to_ say, nothing to think, nothing at all anywhere. Everything is numb. The drive back to the hub, Martha and Jack finding a gurney and carrying Owen down into the lift on it, the way Martha undresses Owen and cleans the blood from his body, all like a television show watched with vaseline rubbed on the screen. Ianto can see, his eyes are working fine, but he's registering nothing at all. A dull whine like a distant mosquito muffles his ears.

“I've got to do an autopsy,” Martha announces softly, once they're all gathered at the computer stations. Someone has pushed Ianto down onto the couch, and he stays there, staring at his knees. Owen is cold and silent under a sheet in his own autopsy room; everyone's eyes resolutely refuse to drift in its direction.

“We know how he died, Martha.” Jack's voice is loud in the shocked silence, the edges of it hard but going ragged.

Martha looks helpless. “It's protocol, Jack. You know that.”

“We're Torchwood. Who gives a shit about protocol.” But he storms into his office before Martha can open her mouth, and she sighs.

“I've got to get scrubs on. You all should get some rest.”

“I want to watch.” Gwen's voice is steady, no room for argument.

“Gwen, I— All right.”

“I'm not leaving, either.” Tosh agrees.

Ianto hasn't even thought of leaving the hub or Owen's body at all. To be honest, he probably would have just stayed on the sofa until someone told him they would take him home. The world is very slowly coming back into focus around him, and if they're staying, he's staying. He nods, though it feels like his entire body is on a time delay. “I'm staying.”

Martha sighs, nodding, and disappears into the locker rooms to wash up and find some scrubs.

Ianto thinks he hears Gwen's shocked voice whisper “This isn't happening,” but he's not sure.

The shaking doesn't start until he's standing in the doorway to the autopsy bay, staring down at Martha readying her tray of instruments. Owen is pale and so very, very still on the metal table. Only hours ago they were laughing together, only hours ago Owen was kissing him against the bathroom sink and messing up his collar just to irritate him. Only hours ago they were joking about the blood in Owen's hair and now... Ianto feels sick. The light glints off the metal as Martha picks up a scalpel and Ianto has to close his eyes; he tries to breathe but the air feels thick around him.

“Stop!” Jack's shout makes everyone jump, and Ianto sways a little as the ragged voice cuts through his stupor. “Nobody touches him until I get back. Is that clear?”

There's a long silence as they stare after him, the plastic sheeting gently undulating, the claxon of the cog door fading away. The scalpel clatters down onto the tray and Martha pulls her mask off.

“What—”

Ianto stares at her dismayed face, then stares past her, into Owen's slackened face, into Owen's pearlescent skin, into Owen's damaged chest. Owen is there on the cold silver table, but Owen isn't _there_ anymore. Ianto's lips feel numb, his body is very far away, his head feels like it's a balloon tied to his neck. He shoves his hands against his mouth, trying to breathe, trying not to be sick. Someone says “Oh my god, Ianto,” but he's already stumbling through the plastic sheeting and nearly tripping across the hub and into the bathroom. His knees hit the stone floor hard enough to bruise and he vomits into the toilet. He's shaking so hard now it's difficult to keep himself upright and he slumps against the porcelain as sobs wrack his body in great waves.

“Ianto?” Martha's muffled voice is accompanied by a gentle knock. “Ianto, are you all right? Can I come in?”

Ianto manages a weak 'yes,' and chokes on the sour taste in his own throat. Martha is still in her scrubs when she finds him in the stall, and it sends him into a fresh paroxysm of sobs. He's crying so hard he can't catch a breath, and every sob shakes his whole body. Martha doesn't touch him, but slides down to sit on the floor beside him; she doesn't say anything to try to comfort him. There's nothing to say.

He blows his nose on some loo roll but it does little to help; a new wave of tears crashes over him as soon as he's crumpled the tissue and tossed it in the toilet.

“I love him, Martha.” He flinches, and presses his palms into his eyes. “Loved.”

“You and Owen...?”

“It was an accident, I guess. At least, I never expected it. When Jack left, we just spent so much time together, and we were sleeping at each other's flats, and then I got hurt and...” He shakes his head, the memory of that first desperate kiss, his breath shuddering on another sob. Every other word is a stutter, fighting through hitching, aching breaths. “Something changed, I don't know. We just sort of fell into it. It was so good. And then Jack came back, but he wasn't the same, he was cold and angry and distant. But Owen thought I should be with Jack, not with him, and he left me.”

“Oh, Ianto,” Martha puts her arm around him this time, her voice full of pitying sadness, like she's got it all figured out.

“I just stayed here because there's nowhere else for me to go. He got hurt in the field, it was bad. Really bad. He almost died—” He breaks off suddenly, stuffs his fist against his mouth at another wave of realisation that Owen _is_ dead this time, is cold and stiff and _gone_. “He almost died and when I ran to help him he told me to get away. He thought I should be with Jack. He thought he'd hurt me, even though I loved him. He thought it would be easier for all of us to just pretend. It wasn't.”

He hates this, he's babbling his entire life story but he can't stop. In the hub he's so reticent he's practically monosyllabic, so when his defenses are down it all comes out in a flood of pain. “A month ago, I found out I'm the only living survivor of Canary Wharf. Owen was there for me. We missed each other, and we decided to try a relationship again. It was good again. It's been good. I love him, Martha, and now he's—”

He can't say the word _dead_ , because then it will be real. He can barely think it, the word a sort of abortive silence in his mind even as the tears roll down his cheeks in a physical betrayal: his body reacting to a truth his mind can't comprehend. A year ago he'd barely even considered Owen a friend; how quickly that moved in the opposite direction. But he never told him the truth, not right out, and now it isn't an option. Martha rubs his back until the tears stutter and stop. It's only because there doesn't seem to be any liquid left in him. He wipes his cheeks and Martha helps him stand and splash cold water on his face. The aching trip from the bathroom to the couch seems to take forever; Gwen and Tosh peer sadly at him, but he can't look at their grief-stricken, pitying expressions.

“I'll be right back,” Martha tells him gently. “Just going to take these scrubs off.”

Owen's lips gentle against his collarbone. He shouldn't think about this. Owen grinning at him outside a shop in The Hayes, looking so normal it's almost beautiful. He shouldn't be thinking about this. Owen's car turning the corner in the early morning light, a muffled sob. He can't _think_. The memories blur, numb, stutter to a stop. He's drifting miserably, just gazing out into the empty nothing, when Martha joins him again.

He wants to say something to her, maybe something about how he's sorry that everything is always so fucking painfully tragic when Owen is involved, but then Jack comes storming in.

Someone shoves the stopwatch in his hand and he finds his way to the autopsy room on autopilot, moving unthinkingly to his usual spot by the monitors. He looks at Jack instead of Owen, and pretends he doesn't hear the long, unending tone of flatlined machines. Like they need another reminder. Like the silence isn't enough, and now they need a signal.

Ianto wishes Owen's screaming, his frantic breaths, the pulse beeping rhythmically could be a relief, a moment of truth, anything but a crushing, indescribable pain. There's too much between them, nothing that can be simplified into a few desperate words without Owen's last thought being one of some sort of hurt. Confessions aren't fair when you're moments away from death. He stares at the timer, can't look, can't see the fear in Owen's eyes, can't think about the seconds left. He tries to memorize the sound of Owen's breath and Owen's voice, but it doesn't sound right, it's too _scared_.

It doesn't help that when the two minutes are up and Owen's still talking, the overwhelming feeling isn't relief, but _panic_.

Nothing feels right, and Ianto has ducked away from everyone else to compare the files on the glove they used on Suzie to this new one. It's his job, he knows how to do this. He can hear Owen's voice from the office over the trill of the filamin filter. Everyone else is in a mad scramble to justify all of this, to wrap their heads around it, but Ianto knows if he really gives it any thought he might just collapse. But he can do this part of the job with one hand tied behind his back, and if it gives him something to do that isn't stumbling over the mess of grief and joy and confusion strewn across his mind, he's going to take advantage of that.

Once he's handed the glove off to Tosh for analysis, Ianto decides maybe it would be better to just be alone for a little while. His head is starting to ache from all the earlier crying. Breaking down in shock and leftover grief isn't really an option, but if he can manage to do it quietly enough, maybe no one will notice.

Owen intercepts him on the way to the archives. His skin is only lukewarm and not the burning heat from before. The expression he wears can't seem to decide whether it's anger or hurt or understanding. Ianto can't imagine the look on his own face is much clearer. They're standing a good two feet from each other, uncertain, confused.

“You didn't say anything,” And this time he does actually sound hurt.

Ianto shrugs, wishing the truth didn't sound like such bullshit. “I couldn't think of anything to say. Nothing that would have meant anything, that is.”

“You could have at least said goodbye. Anything, really.” He could have. He didn't. That truth sits like lead in his belly.

“I wanted to say I love you, but that would have just been unfair.”

Owen looks hurt, but he smiles a little, ruefully. “You're right, it would have.”

It's still unfair this time, too.

“I'll save it for some other time, then.”

“Good.”

It's then that Ianto reaches out and presses a hand against Owen's chest, just above the bullet wound. Owen moves forward, and they're crowding each other's space now. Ianto catches Owen's hand like he wants to bring the palm to his mouth and thinks better of it, and then they both just stop. Owen feels cold under Ianto's touch, but the solid weight of him is still there; he's not breathing, hell, he might not even be _human_ , but at least he's _there_.

“Ianto!” Jack's voice rings out across the hub. “Come give Tosh a hand, an extra set of eyes would be nice.”

Owen's eyes search his face for something, but Ianto's overriding emotion is shock, and his eyes are still swollen from crying, and he has no idea what else he's feeling or what is on his face. His breath hitches involuntarily as he pulls away from Owen, who stands there looking lost, flexing his fingers slowly.

Even when Jack is out chasing Owen through the streets of Cardiff half an hour later, Ianto can't wrap his head around the fact that this Owen is only _half_ Owen. That the man he touched maybe can't even feel it anymore. His mind is still reeling from losing Owen and getting him back in a gap of less than twelve hours, and this should be normal for a job like this, but he's never been able to imagine Owen as anything but _warm_.

He hates this, standing helplessly in the hothouse, feeling useless and off-kilter as he watches Jack and Martha preparing embalming fluid in the autopsy room below. He's so scared, so scared, but Owen's voice had been a desperate mix of terror and anger when he insisted that they embalm him and he hates it when Owen's right. He's not ready for this to happen. He doesn't think he ever will be.

“I'm surprised you're up here,” Owen's voice makes him jump, even though it's gentle. “Thought you'd be in the archives.”

Ianto leans against the table, shifting a little to make room for Owen to join him. “I wanted someplace with more light. Plus I can see what's going on from up here.”

“It's not a bad view, is it?” They both pretend to gaze out at the hub. Owen breaks the pretense first. “How are you holding up?”

“Shouldn't I be asking you that?”

Owen sighs, and it sounds weird, a perfunctory bodily function only happening out of emotional instinct, rather than any need for air. “I asked first.”

“I don't know. Really, I don't.” He digs his thumb into the corner of his eye and runs both hands through his hair. “Torchwood just fucking takes and takes and then it ruins what it lets you keep.” It came out sounding more aggressive than he meant. He can't decide if the lump in his throat is tears or a scream. “I just can't stand the thought of losing you again. It's not fair. I hate this.”

“I know. I'm sorry.”

“Me too. Are you okay?”

“I'm scared, but I think I'm ready. I can't do anything anymore, nothing is like it used to be. Everything physical is just gone. I'm a brain in a bowl of jelly.” Owen inspects his hands, so he won't have to look up. “I don't know, I kind of think I was always sort of suicidal, at least since I got here. Maybe it will be okay.”

Ianto doesn't have to ask. He gets it.

Kissing Owen is indescribably weird like this, but Ianto wraps his arms around him anyway and kisses him with everything he has left. Owen's fingers are tangled in the hair at the base of Ianto's neck, and Ianto has one hand curled around Owen's waist, the other pressed to his jaw. Owen, miraculously, still tastes faintly of Owen, and Ianto chases it and the feeling of the kiss until his chest constricts painfully. Even then, he pulls Owen closer, trying to deepen the kiss, as if maybe he can keep any of this from happening if they both stay just like this. Owen groans into his mouth, or it could have been a sob. Ianto hasn't been able to tell today. He brushes a thumb against Owen's cheek and tries to ignore the thought of a desperate last kiss, focuses instead on Owen's fingers in his hair, pulling him close. Gwen calls out, ready with the scrubs, and they break apart. Ianto is breathing raggedly, and Owen just looks ragged.

“I'm _fucking_ going to miss you,” Owen whispers, making Ianto's stomach drop away, and it sounds like he'd be crying if he could. Ianto, for his part, is swallowing his own tears quietly. It's not fair for only one of them to be able to cry.

Watching Owen walk away to the conference room to change is like watching his own heart break.

It's like a horrible fucking funeral procession, Ianto thinks, watching Owen drift across the hub with Gwen following slowly behind. Only this time the deceased is still alive and gets to witness the mourners mourning him. He's gripping the railing with so much force he's sure there will be indents in his palm for days. Owen's own hand curls around the railing and slides along it, not stopping at Ianto's hand but curling over it, fingers brushing the back of his wrist in an odd sort of intimacy, and Ianto joins the slow procession down into the med bay. There isn't time for anything like goodbyes, and Ianto isn't sure he'd be able to get the word out anyway.

* * *

No one says a thing in the car on the drive back from the hospital. Martha is up front with Jack, who has one hand in hers when he's not working the gearshift. Gwen and Tosh are staring out the windows, drained adrenaline leaving them staring in shock and exhaustion. In the back, Owen puts his head on Ianto's shoulder and closes his eyes.

He gets it. He's fucking _tired_. The grief upon grief of losing Owen again and again, the utter fucking madness chasing a gauntlet around the autopsy room like a rat around a kitchen, the mad scramble to get Martha to the hospital, Jack's body into the SUV, and Owen decent clothes to change into all at once, the desperate search for clues on how to defeat sodding _Death_ of all things. Ianto feels like he could sleep for ten years. Owen probably feels worse.

One more examination to make sure Owen is back to normal—well, as normal as he can get now—and Jack tells everyone to go home and get some rest. They've all been awake for more than forty-eight hours, running on panic and coffee and aborted sorrow.

“Do you need anything?” Ianto asks, finding Owen in the med bay while everyone collects their coats and keys and other belongings to leave for the night.

“No,” Owen shakes his head. “I think I'm just going to head home. I need some time alone.”

“Okay.” Ianto shifts a little, like he wants to touch Owen but thinks better of it. Then: “I'm glad you're still here.”

Owen nods vaguely. “Maybe I am, too. I don't know.”

Ianto sleeps badly that night, his brain replaying Owen's death over and over again. When he finally does slip into something like slumber, nightmare shadows turn from Lisa trapped in the cyberman suit, to Owen trapped in its metal cage, bleeding and terrified. Owen is on the ground, bleeding from a hole in his chest, then he's being eaten by cannibals, then he's not Owen but Lisa. Ianto's subconscious is pretty fucking heavy-handed, but he also knows that there are traumas in his life that tower ominously over every other thing he has ever done or seen. The worst dreams are the ones where Owen dies, but he comes back, and then they kill him again, and Ianto is the one holding the syringe.

In the morning, he doesn't feel rested in the least.

Owen is angry and hurting and lost, and lashing out, and it feels like they're back where they started, back before Jack left, before they found comfort in each other. Owen can't sleep anymore; Ianto wonders what he spent the night thinking about. Considering his own restless nightmares, he can't imagine it was anything good. He tries to be as gentle as possible, because Jack is doing that cold and angry thing that he does when his team get to be too much, but Owen is rolling his eyes at him and glaring and snarling. It feels like they're back to that first year, and Owen is a thousand miles away, lashing out with a sort of feral anger.

Neither of them want to be doing this, this facade that they're actually willing to go along with Jack's idea, that it's not just going to end in arguments and tears and maybe an insult or two that you can't take back. As insane as they can go sometimes, they _are_ a predictable bunch.

Ianto is surprised that Owen lasts five minutes at the coffee machine before ceramic is smashing on the floor at their feet (the sound should be satisfying, should be somehow cathartic, but it isn't), his face a heartbreaking cross between fury and despair.

Ianto thinks of that last, grief-stricken kiss, of wanting to pull Owen inside him and protect him forever, of the honest emotion in Owen's voice when he told him 'I'm fucking going to miss you'. All that's been replaced with frustration and fury, and Owen looks like he's ready to haul off and punch something, but instead he's shifting restlessly on his feet, strangling a tea towel in his fists.

“This is fucked. I can't go out on missions, can't even do my own job in the hub. Jack's let you out in the field and now I'm stuck here making the coffee!”

“I was put in the field because we needed an extra man.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Owen rolls his eyes, balling the tea towel tighter and tighter. “Gwen's getting married, Martha's got her bloke. Jack could have you whenever he wants now. God, even Tosh had Tommy. This is really _shit_.”

Ianto doesn't mention their relationship, or his distinct lack of anything with Jack, the insecurities they can use as ammunition against each other, even if it's unfair. “We've all gone through shit. I've seen you dissect alien corpses. I've seen you save so many lives. Are you really going to let this beat you?”

Owen says nothing, but Ianto can feel his stare on the back of his neck, and it isn't fucking fair that this has to happen when they were finally starting to be something along the lines of happy.

He only mentions Tintin as an opening, a way to return to their old stupid, harmless teasing, only Owen is awkward, and doesn't know where he fits anymore and he ends up rambling because, really, what else are you supposed to do when everyone is walking on eggshells around you and doesn't know how to look you in the eye anymore? When the meeting adjourns, Owen can't look at anyone, and they can't look at him; the rules have changed and nobody knows what instructions to use.

Ianto resurfaces from the archives to make coffee. It feels strange making five cups but delivering one to Martha and not Owen. No longer are they going to have that little moment together, the brush of fingers against the warm ceramic, the half-exaggerated, half-serious groan of pleasure at the first sip of coffee, the gentle banter between them before the caffeine kicks in and it's time to focus. It's a strange thing to realise he'll miss.

“Where's Owen?” he asks the room at large, as Jack wanders out of his office to snag a biscuit from the plate next to Toshiko's elbow.

“I sent him home for the next twenty-four hours,” Jack replies, although it sounds more like a declaration. “He needs some time to cool off, get used to all this.”

Ianto's not sure that's such a good idea. He saw the look on Owen's face at the coffee machine, as if he was a wounded animal trapped in a cage. Wild and angry and scrabbling for grip. A man who spent his life satisfying the primal urges out of some attempt at fulfillment, and now he's numb and empty. Owen is self-destructive at the best of times; there's no saying what he'll be like now. But Jack's warning look in his direction says there will be consequences for one or both of them if he goes against this, and he doesn't want to cause Owen any more grief than what he's already got. It already feels like he's back where they started, spiky and furious and constantly on the offensive.

When he gets home that night, he calls Owen's cell phone, twice. Both times, Owen doesn't pick up. He doesn't leave a message; he knows they'll only be deleted.

* * *

The next morning Ianto drags himself into work without checking up on Owen, and instead passive aggressively waits until Jack's coffee has cooled to give it to him. Tosh is already in, looking tired and a little frustrated, and he gives her an extra shot of espresso and some chocolate in her drink. She smiles at him just a little, but when Gwen comes in, fretting loudly about the wedding (and won't they all be glad when it's over and done with), she's back to frowning, little lines forming against the down-turned corners of her mouth.

Ianto hides from the whole atmosphere in the archives for a few hours, and when he emerges, Tosh has gone to lunch and Gwen is doing research on Henry Parker while bickering down the phone at some wedding-related person. He makes himself a coffee and sits down on the couch, listening to the too-quiet sounds of Martha organizing the autopsy room.

A flash of movement on one of the CCTV screens must catch his eye, because suddenly he's staring at the computer, trying to figure out what drew his attention, and then suddenly there's Owen, running full-tilt towards the bay, his face twisted into something that grows into a scream as he runs down the docks and launches himself into the water.

“Um, Jack—” he starts to call up, but Jack is already emerging from his office, smoothing the lapels of his jacket.

“I know. I saw. I'll be right back.” Jack's face is impenetrable. Ianto _hates_ that. He turns away from the CCTV as Jack walks out onto the docks to the dark patch of water Owen threw himself into. He doesn't want to see the look on Owen's face when he comes out.

Forty-five minutes later Jack is strolling in, looking casual and a little like frustration and amusement are warring for dominance. Owen is distinctly missing, but Jack claps his hands. “All right, guys, board room in five. Tell me what you've got. I called Toshiko, she'll be here in a few.”

They've already reviewed their information on Henry Parker when Owen shuffles in, looking awkward and distant. A bandage binding two fingers together has joined the one protecting the slice on his palm, but no one says anything. He looks a bit desperate, like something has come slightly loose inside him, and a little afraid when Jack gives the signal and Ianto hands him back his weapon.

When she returns Tosh seems caught somewhere between embarrassment and sadness, returning Owen's keys and sitting down in her chair at the table, but they all kind of know what he's done, and it's Owen's turn to walk away, shoulders hunched, only returning as Jack is handing out preparation orders and dismissing them all from the boardroom. Owen doesn't look ashamed, only frustrated and slightly desperate, lifting his chin in a sort of dazed challenge and holding Jack's gaze. There's an accusation there: Jack brought him back, Jack couldn't just leave his death well enough alone, Jack is to blame for the numbness in his body and the pain in his mind.

Ianto has his arms full of variously sized containment chambers and is passing Jack's office when he hears Owen scoff and Jack's long-suffering sigh. He pauses to eavesdrop, tucking himself into the corner of the wall where the windows don't reach.

“So are you done with all this?” Jack sounds annoyed, impatient. “You've got to get used to these sort of things, you know.”

Owen growls and smacks something with the palm of his hand, maybe Jack's desk. “I'm bloody sick of your tendency to make a molehill out of a mountain! I'm _dead_ ; it's not something you just happily accept after a day and a half. How long did it take _you_ after you died the first time? Sod that, it's not even the same. You can do anything you like and you bounce right back. I'm a walking sensory deprivation chamber, I can't do _shit_.”

“You're going back into the field—”

“Oh yeah? For how long? Until I'm not the only man to do the job, yeah? Bollocks to that.”

“You're going back into the field, and we'll see how to proceed after tonight. Work with me, Owen, I'm trying to help.”

“And doing a bloody wonderful job of it, too, mate.” Owen's voice is dripping with sarcasm, ground out through gritted teeth. “Just _get used_ to being dead. Just _get used_ to being the equivalent of a fucking head in a jar. Don't be fucking pissed off that you were brought back and it killed twelve people, and on top of it all you're a bloody sentient mannequin! Christ.”

“This can be a preliminary trial before I reinstate you. We'll see.” Jack shifts in his chair, and the topic is very clearly closed. “It's time for you to get ready. Gwen needs to debrief you.”

Owen storms out of the office and across the hub without glancing back. Ianto can't decide if he's glad or hurt that he went unnoticed.

The idea of losing Owen for the third (or is it fourth?) time around doesn't get any easier. But there's no explosion, no implosion, no fallout. Just silence, and the rays of energy stretching out across the screen. The backs of Ianto's eyes sting, but he's not sure he can cry anymore. He's not sure he can take another layer of hurt.

And then the energy pulses, stretching outward and moving back in. The next pulse is smaller, the energy's radius shrinking at each pull and stretch, until it's back to the size it was when they first detected it.

“Owen?” Tosh asks, hopeful. “Owen, are you there?”

Silence. She bites her lip.

He hears Jack's sharp inhale. “Report, Owen.”

Nothing. The signal is barely visible on the screen, just another basic energy pattern put out by any other benign electromagnetic force.

“Owen?” Ianto tries.

“Yeah,” the reply is soft, half-broken and clogged with emotion. “I'm here. I'm alright.”

“Rendezvous at the car.” Jack commands. “We have a containment chamber for the device.”

“It doesn't need one. Give me a minute. I'll come down, I just need a second.”

“Fine.”

Ianto takes his earpiece out. He hates hearing Owen in pain and not being able to help. He wants nothing more than to just be there with him, to take some of that ache away. Instead he's trapped here in the hub. He's spent too much time lately listening to Owen break down and being unable to help him.

* * *

It's five in the morning, and Ianto has been home for three hours and sitting wide awake in bed for two and a half. It's too early to get up and do anything, and too late to sleep, so he just lies on his back and stares at the ceiling, trying to think about _anything_ but Torchwood and failing to come up with a single subject.

He's thinking about running a bath just for something to _do_ when someone knocks at the door. Through the peephole, he can see Owen, looking tired and sad and a little annoyed. When he opens the door, Owen smiles apologetically.

“Sorry for waking you. I just didn't want to be on my own.”

Ianto shakes his head. “I haven't slept yet. Come in.”

Owen leaves his jacket and backpack on the sofa and follows him back to his bedroom, somehow not looking at his shirtless back or the curved lines of his body. Ianto curls up against the headboard while Owen sits cross-legged beside him, a good distance away. There's a long silence, not awkward but not without heaviness. It still feels like Owen is far away, as if the last couple of months have been some sort of lovely dream. Now they're both tired and sleepless and too far apart on the bed. For a long time, Owen's eyes are closed, a slight pinch between his brows; when he opens them, there's conflict there. Ianto reaches out like he's going to smooth Owen's hair, thinks better of it, and pats his shoulder awkwardly instead.

“What happened? How are you holding up?”

Owen shrugs, taking dying and resurrecting and wrestling with Death and breaking into a man's house and losing a patient and having no sensation and the confusion of his place in the world, and shoving it all under one great big question mark.

“I'm not sure, myself. Someone died, and then I think I saved someone else's life.” The grey morning light makes Owen's grim, washed-out face look actually dead. “It's early, or late, I'm not sure which. And I'm bloody trapped in this body that can't feel a thing. So I don't know what's happened tonight and I haven't a fucking clue how I'm feeling about it right now.”

“You saved someone's life? When? Are they okay?”

“I was walking home. There was a woman on a roof. I talked her down, I think.”

“You think?”

Owen scoffs, flashing Ianto one of his eye-rolling glares he's been throwing around lately. “Listen, Jones, I can't force her to make a decision. I went and talked to her and then she came down and agreed to get help, but if she's back up there tomorrow night, that's not my fault.”

“Owen, I didn't mean it that way. Are _you_ okay?” He looks down at his knees. “Last night, it sounded like it could have been you on that roof.”

“It was,” Owen mumbles, trailing off a little like his thoughts have strayed elsewhere for a long moment. Then he shrugs, lifting his gaze away from Ianto and out the window towards the grey, whited-out sky. “I'm not real. I'm not sure if I have been for a long time.”

“You're real, we all are,” Ianto tells him. It sounds odd in his mouth.

“Are we? I go to work, go home, drink, maybe get laid, pass out for a few hours. Repeat. That wasn't much of a life. And I didn't really feel much anyway. Like I was dead already. It's the same this time only I'm _actually_ numb.”

“It's real, I think. You and me, we're real.”

“This is fucking stupid,” Owen groans, dropping his head in his hands. “Why'd Jack have to bring me back?”

Ianto feels a flash of irritation, all the stress and hurt twisting into something angry. “I don't know, maybe it's because we didn't want to fucking lose you? Maybe because Jack actually cares about you? Maybe it's because he wanted us to be able to say goodbye? Because you died in the most bullshit, unfair way possible? Copely shot you in the heart; you were alive and then you just weren't anymore and we couldn't do a single thing about it. I, for one, am happy we brought you back because I didn't want to lose you so soon, but if you want to bitch and moan about not being all-the-way-dead, you know, go right ahead.”

In the ringing silence, Owen stares at him, looking shocked and a little hurt. A siren wails in the distance. Ianto feels everything inside him deflate and he rests his elbows on his knees, pushing his hands into his hair.

“Sorry.”

Owen laughs dryly, shrugging. “You may have a point.”

“I sometimes do. For what it's worth, I'm glad you're still here.”

“I'm still trying to decide if I agree with you.” Owen picks absently at the bandages on his hand. Ianto stifles a massive yawn. “You haven't slept.”

Ianto shakes his head, resting his hands on his knees and his forehead on top of them. “Couldn't. I haven't slept, really, not since— Anyway, I'm sorry about everything that happened tonight.”

“I'm— 'over it' is not the right word.” Owen says haltingly. “I'm getting used to it. Maybe I'm growing as a person. Or something.”

“'Or something' is usually more our style,” Ianto points out, eyes closed. He's starting to get that floating feeling, the gentle sensation of slowly falling asleep.

“This can't be comfortable,” Owen notes, voice gentle but laced with a little bit of amusement.

The rustle of sheets is soft as he shifts on the mattress. Gently, he manoeuvers Ianto down to a better, more horizontal position, pressing his hands lightly against each joint as if testing their strength. He pushes Ianto's hair back from his forehead, thumb brushing against a temple, and he's moving away when Ianto curls his fingers around his wrist. Ianto can't help the tears in his eyes, the ache in his chest, the way his lips tremble like he's going to burst into sobs.

“Touch me again,” he whispers, catching his lip between his teeth like the words are a confession he didn't mean to make.

“Ianto—” Owen begins uncertainly, but Ianto is already guiding his hand back down to his bare chest.

“Please,” Ianto continues, voice still soft with the threat of tears. “It's been three days, and I almost lost you so many times. I miss you.”

Owen slides down to lie beside him, running his hands across Ianto's chest and over his arms. “Ianto, I'm—”

“Dead? Not warm anymore? I don't care, you're still _you_.”

“Okay,” Owen murmurs, and Ianto tugs gently on his shirt, reaching up to undo the first few buttons until Owen gets the picture and takes it off. He kicks off his jeans as well, so they're both left in their pants.

There's a stretch of silence as Ianto ghosts his fingers across the raised wound in Owen's chest. Owen's skin is cool, somewhere just below room temperature, and strangely soft. It surprises him; he's used to the stiff, waxy skin of the victims he handles some days. Owen's thumbs make gentle circles against Ianto's hips. Then Ianto hooks a hand round the back of Owen's neck and pulls him down for a kiss, both of them trying to work their way around the awkward numbness. Owen shifts until he's settled on top of Ianto, skin pressed against skin from shoulder to knee. Ianto's breath hitches at the contact and he pushes his face against the crook of Owen's neck. He stills, and remains like that for a long time. It's only when he feels Owen pushing his fingers gently through his hair that Ianto realizes he's sobbing into his shoulder. Hiccuping lamely, he dries his eyes with the back of one hand. Owen's lips press against the top of his hair, graze his cheek, his lips, move down to settle against his collarbone. Ianto cups the back of Owen's head. It's strange not to feel the warmth of Owen's breath across his bare skin.

“You know we can't—” Owen starts, cutting himself off with disappointment or maybe embarrassment.

“I know,” Ianto rolls his eyes and shifts up on his elbows. “It's not about that. It's just, when do any of us get a moment to just sit like this? Everything at Torchwood is one crisis after the other, one tragedy after the next. I just want to have this _moment_. I just want something still and uninterrupted, so we can sit here and, I don't know, _be_ , just for an hour or two. I know we've got to go into work later, but I have spent the last three days thinking I've lost you. I just want to stop for a second and lay here with you.”

“I think I'm okay with that.” Owen gives him a warm smile, slipping his hands across Ianto's ribs, apparently fascinated by the gentle expansion of his lungs as he breathes.

“Good.”

Owen runs his fingers through Ianto's hair, scratching his nails gently against his scalp until Ianto hums happily. He kisses Ianto's forehead and rolls off of him, moving to sit up against the headboard and wrap his arm around Ianto's shoulders instead.

“Want to know something?”

Ianto runs his fingers thoughtfully across Owen's ribs, fingers ghosting away millimeters from the hole in his chest. “Hmm?”

“I stole that alien device from Henry Parker's. I didn't leave it in the hub, it's in my pack on your sofa.”

Ianto feels his heart kick a little. The blind, resigned grief as the energy building on the screen reached its zenith, at the silence on the other end of the comm, at the broken edge to Owen's voice. The artefact seems more like a harbinger of hurt than the reply to earth's intergalactic time capsule. He looks up into Owen's tired face.

“Why? Jack just said it was a reply to the messages we sent off in the seventies.”

“Yeah, I know.” Owen shakes his head. His hand balls into a fist against Ianto's neck, thumping gently against his bare skin. “But when I was back there, in Parker's house, it didn't explode or anything. It just...sang to me. Or at least that's what it sounded like. And it was beautiful. I couldn't save Parker and I _really_ just wanted to end it all. That thing gave me _something_. I showed it to the woman on the roof, too.”

“Did it sing for her, too?”

“Yeah, and then it just...went quiet.” Owen's gaze turns in the direction of the living room, as though he can just will the alien object to resume its song. “I think it needs to rebuild its charge. Or something.”

“Are you going to give it back?”

“Dunno.” Owen shrugs. When Martha left he'd finally looked relaxed; now he just looks bleak again. “I used to have fucking and drinking to keep from offing myself. Maybe now I can have that thing.”

“We should go on a date,” Ianto blurts out. “A real one.”

“Ianto, I can't eat or drink.”

“You could pretend? You could say you're just not hungry. I want to just be a regular person with you.”

“We haven't been regular people since we joined this fucking organization.”

“That's what I mean!”

Owen sighs, even though he doesn't actually need to anymore. “Let me get used to this weird new body first. Then we'll see.”

“We should do dinner and a movie. I haven't done that since Lisa was still alive,” And it surprises Ianto that he can talk about Lisa now with just a light twinge against his heart. “It was always really nice.”

Owen hums in agreement and blinks slowly up at the ceiling. Ianto stares at his face, wondering what he's thinking, wondering what it must be like to live in a numb body when you've spent your whole life chasing sensation. Wondering why things have to slip sideways every time they think they've finally found stability. And yet Torchwood is still standing, as if every employee has somehow figured out how to ride the chaos into some new understanding of what survival is meant to be.

At some point, Ianto must have fallen asleep, because he wakes up at ten-thirty with his arms wrapped around Owen's middle, his head tucked under Owen's chin and the gentle, calming sensation of Owen running his hands through his hair. Owen chuckles a little, still petting his hair, but it doesn't vibrate through him like it used to.

“You just knocked out. Time for work, I guess.”

“Hmm,” Ianto kisses the curve of Owen's shoulder. “I need some coffee before I get dressed.”

“Fucking _shit_ , I'm going _miss_ coffee,” Owen groans, and follows him out to the kitchen, hopping up to sit on the counter and watch Ianto grind the beans for his coffee. “Did Jack tell you if he's reinstating me as a field agent or not? Because I wasn't really in the mood to stick around last night. He didn't say much to me.”

“I didn't think to ask,” Ianto admits. “And he didn't offer. You're our doctor again, I know that much. Martha wouldn't have gone home otherwise. Not sure about going on missions, though. I guess you just have to come in with me and see.”

“And if he's decided I'm going to just be the hub zombie?”

“Well, you're definitely not making the coffee anymore. I'm taking my job back. We'll figure out things for you to do.”

“Yeah, I'd rather not just sit around twiddling my thumbs. Won't even have breathing for fun.”

“There are plenty of video games in this world for you to beat.” Ianto laughs and shoves gently at Owens knee. “You can come bother me in the archives whenever you want. I might make you file some things, but I won't object to some form of bribery.”

“Drink your coffee, you necrophiliac bastard, or we'll be late for work.”

Grinning, Ianto brings his mug to his lips and takes a long sip. With a sarcastically long-suffering sigh, Owen heaves himself off the countertop and goes in search of shoes and coats for both of them.

“Your car or mine?” Ianto asks, watching Owen slide his leather jacket on.

“Mine's fine,” Owen shrugs. He leans in for a kiss as Ianto walks past on his way to the sink. “Damn, can't even smell it anymore! Didn't think I'd miss coffee this much.”

“At least you're not going through caffeine withdrawals.”

“There's that.”

“And at least you're still here.”

“There's that, too.”

Owen waits until Ianto's coat is on before catching his hand and pulling him close. “What—”

“Go on a date with me,” Owen smiles softly, parroting back Ianto's words from the night before. “A real date. Like, a whole day trip sort of thing. We deserve it, yeah?”

He can barely feel the pressure of Ianto's fingers at his waist, but the confusion and delight warring on his face are clear as day. “What? But you said—”

“I was thinking, while you were asleep,” Owen shrugs, like this isn't something huge. Like this isn't the sort of decision that defies everything Torchwood has beaten into them over the years. “There's been all this bullshit, you know? All this fucking _pain_ and everything. We should get a break. You deserve to be happy, you know. _We_ deserve it.”

The kiss Ianto yanks him into is fierce, a sort of desperate happiness after all the tragedy that's overshadowed them for so long. Ianto's embrace is tight enough that Owen can feel it even through his numbness. It's hard when he can't really feel anything, but he hopes his kisses are as intense as the emotions racing through his mind right now.

“I love you,” Ianto breathes when they pull apart.

Owen smiles and lets himself be kissed again, quick and sweet. “Yeah, yeah, I love you too, and we're going to be late to work.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this isn't finished, but at the moment I don't think I'm going to finish it. I wrote this a year and a half ago, and then wasn't sure how to transition to the next part. Maybe in a while I'll pick it back up and finish it, because I do have the rest sort of planned out. But for now it's going to remain incomplete.


End file.
